Diplomatic Text
Frith Derbyshire
March 25th. 1789
I will write you a Note my dear instead
of a letter that I may have some chance
of a reply. I want to know how you do
after all what I am certain you have
suffered during our beloved and excellent
Kings illneʃs and the Queens poignant
affliction, which must have affected the
most insensible but deeply wounded
such a heart as yours. -- God be praised
our sadneʃs is turned to joy! and I trust
his Majesty will consider himself more
than he has done, and endeavour to
preserve a life of such infinite value
& consequence. It does one good to think
of the overflowing happineʃs our amiable
& exemplary Queen and the Princeʃses
must feel -- may they never again exper-
ience the anguish of mind they have done;
Her Majesty was ever deserving of the
highest respect, attachment, and admiration;
She must now not only be admired, respect
ed, and loved, but revered as a shining pattern of Christian piety -- for what
else than a firm faith, and reliance on
the Supreme Being could have supported
her
her to act in the manner she did, when
under the heavy preʃsure of such an affliction?
I have just now recd. a letter frm-
Mrs. Granville with a particular account
of Mr. Waddington, and am extremely
pleased to find Mrs. Waddington has so
fair a prospect of comfort & happineʃs;
-- as I imagine You hear frequently
from her, it would be needleʃs for me
to send you any intelligence respecting
her. If Mrs. Astley is at Windsor
pray remember me very kindly to her.
What a fortunate circumstance that our
dearest friend Mrs. Delany did not
live till his Majesty's illneʃs -- she
certainly would have died of a broken
heart long before it pleased God he
should recover. Pray ask Mrs-
Schwellenberg if she has received a
letter from me -- I sent her one the
wch. I entrusted to a private hand,
the beginning of this month; I
hope she does not suffer so cruelly in
her health as she used to do. --
It will give me great pleasure to
hear that your Father is well --
dont fail to remember me very
cordially to him. My love to Mr-
and Mrs. Smelt, with many thanks
to him for his friendly & kind answer
to my letter, which I recd. yesterday.
If Mr. Digby, ye. worthy Mr. Digby, is
with you do Mr. Dickenson & me
the favor to present our most affte-
regards to him; -- do you not like
Mr. Digby? he is a man deserving
respect & love: -- how rich you
are to have both him & Mr. Smelt!
Mr. Dickenson insists upon mhy
sending his love to you; -- he is
very well, as is our little Darling
-- whom I think you will like
for her own sake, at least I
flatter myself so, --
I am ever most Affly-
& faithfully Yours
Mry- Dicke[nson]
I beg you will inform me if Mr & Mrs
Fisher are at Windsor -- tell Mr. F. Mr. D. went
to see him last summer & was much disappointed
not to find him at home[2] -- I also wrote a letter to
him to wch. I never recd. an ansr.. How is Mrs-
de Luc? pray tell her & Mr. de Luc that I have
always the sincerest regard for them.
Do me ye. favor to enquire of Mrs. Schwellenberg after
Genl. Freytag & Mrs. Hagerdorn.
To
Miʃs Burney[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The wording of this letter is almost identical to Hamilton's draft (see HAM/1/6/5/2), merely omitting the word much from the draft's ‘I want much to know how you do’. Otherwise the versions differ only in punctuation, capitalisation, abbreviation and a couple of redundant words not deleted from the draft.
2. John Dickenson's diary entry for 2 June 1788 includes the sentence ‘I left my name at Mr. Fisher's’ (see DDX 274/19 p.96).
3. The direction is written upside down in the middle of the page.
Normalised Text
Frith Derbyshire
March 25th. 1789
I will write you a Note my dear instead
of a letter that I may have some chance
of a reply. I want to know how you do
after all what I am certain you have
suffered during our beloved and excellent
Kings illness and the Queens poignant
affliction, which must have affected the
most insensible but deeply wounded
such a heart as yours. -- God be praised
our sadness is turned to joy! and I trust
his Majesty will consider himself more
than he has done, and endeavour to
preserve a life of such infinite value
& consequence. It does one good to think
of the overflowing happiness our amiable
& exemplary Queen and the Princesses
must feel -- may they never again experience
the anguish of mind they have done;
Her Majesty was ever deserving of the
highest respect, attachment, and admiration;
She must now not only be admired, respected
, and loved, but revered as a shining pattern of Christian piety -- for what
else than a firm faith, and reliance on
the Supreme Being could have supported
her to act in the manner she did, when
under the heavy pressure of such an affliction?
I have just now received a letter from
Mrs. Granville with a particular account
of Mr. Waddington, and am extremely
pleased to find Mrs. Waddington has so
fair a prospect of comfort & happiness;
-- as I imagine You hear frequently
from her, it would be needless for me
to send you any intelligence respecting
her. If Mrs. Astley is at Windsor
pray remember me very kindly to her.
What a fortunate circumstance that our
dearest friend Mrs. Delany did not
live till his Majesty's illness -- she
certainly would have died of a broken
heart long before it pleased God he
should recover. Pray ask Mrs-
Schwellenberg if she has received a
letter from me -- I sent her one
which I entrusted to a private hand,
the beginning of this month; I
hope she does not suffer so cruelly in
her health as she used to do. --
It will give me great pleasure to
hear that your Father is well --
don't fail to remember me very
cordially to him. My love to Mr-
and Mrs. Smelt, with many thanks
to him for his friendly & kind answer
to my letter, which I received yesterday.
If Mr. Digby, the worthy Mr. Digby, is
with you do Mr. Dickenson & me
the favour to present our most affectionate
regards to him; -- do you not like
Mr. Digby? he is a man deserving
respect & love: -- how rich you
are to have both him & Mr. Smelt!
Mr. Dickenson insists upon my
sending his love to you; -- he is
very well, as is our little Darling
-- whom I think you will like
for her own sake, at least I
flatter myself so, --
I am ever most Affectionately
& faithfully Yours
Mary Dickenson
I beg you will inform me if Mr & Mrs
Fisher are at Windsor -- tell Mr. Fisher Mr. Dickenson went
to see him last summer & was much disappointed
not to find him at home -- I also wrote a letter to
him to which I never received an answer. How is Mrs-
de Luc? pray tell her & Mr. de Luc that I have
always the sincerest regard for them.
Do me the favour to enquire of Mrs. Schwellenberg after
General Freytag & Mrs. Hagerdorn.
To
Miss Burney
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library
Archive: Frances Burney d'Arblay collection of papers
Item title: Letter from Mary Hamilton to Frances Burney
Shelfmark: NYPL 526189(1)
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Hamilton
Place sent: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith
Addressee: Frances D'Arblay (née Burney)
Place received: Windsor (certainty: low)
Date sent: 25 March 1789
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to Frances Burney, 25 March 1789.
The draft version of this can be seen in HAM/1/6/5/2.
Length: 1 sheet, 578 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).
All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.
Acknowledgements: XML version first created without transcription as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1. Transcription added after the funded period under the supervision of David Denison and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza.
Transliterator: Pete Morris, Artificial Intelligence and Ideas Adoption (AIIA), The University of Manchester Library (Plain text transliteration submitted 23 December 2025)
Transliterator: Sophie Coulombeau (Partial transliteration submitted 5 October 2022)
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 26 December 2025
